


Tightrope

by LavenderJam



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: A wild animal in a cage too small for it, Adultery, Affair era, Choking, F/M, First Aid, Jealousy, Light Bondage, Possessive Behavior, Pre-Canon, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:55:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27433144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderJam/pseuds/LavenderJam
Summary: For a moment, he thought she was dressing, and he pressed his fists into the bedspread like a child on the verge of a tantrum. But when he looked at her, a protest barrelling towards his tongue, he saw her rifling throughhisclothes, the monkey on her shoulder.“What are you doing?”“You’ll see.”The woman and the golden daemon exchanged a few conspiratorial whispers, then Marisa pulled two of his silk ties from a hanger and turned to him, a sly grin on her face.(When Asriel refuses to stop leaving blemishes on her skin, Marisa takes matters into her own hands.)
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	Tightrope

**Author's Note:**

> “One of the male’s dreams is to 'brand' woman so that she remains his for ever; but even the most arrogant male knows only too well that he will never leave her anything more than memories, and the most passionate images are cold compared with real sensation.” - The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
> 
> “All his movements were large and perfectly balanced, like those of a wild animal, and when he appeared in a room like this, he seems a wild animal held in a cage too small for it.” - Northern Lights, Philip Pullman 
> 
> “Oh, do correct me, Asriel,” she said; “someone who displays a captive to his under-officers is clearly a prince of politeness. Untie me, or I’ll _force_ you to gag me.”  
> “As you wish,” he said, and took a silk scarf from the drawer; but before he could tie it around her mouth, she shook her head.  
> “No, no,” she said, “Asriel, don’t, I beg you, please don’t humiliate me.” - The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman

Asriel’s head was buried between her legs, the scruff of his beard rubbing against the delicate skin of her inner thighs as he devoured her. The friction burned and Marisa could only picture the skin reddening, scratched by the sharp hairs of his stubble, the cells of her epidermis inflamed and screeching. On another day, this thought might have buoyed her on; she’d been pushed into a climax by far less. Today, she pushed herself up onto her elbows and glared at him.

He was oblivious to her irritation, completely focused on the task at the end of his tongue, and her displeasure only became clear when he broke from nuzzling his face into her folds to clamp the soft skin of her thigh between his teeth, and she gave his shoulder a sharp shove with her foot. “Asriel!”

He was hardly disturbed by her jolt, though he did look up, perturbed. His face was glistening with the evidence of her arousal, his eyes dark with desire. “What?”

She pushed him away and examined the marks, pleased to see that he hadn’t broken the skin, though the sight of her angry inner thighs was still enough to make her grimace.

He frowned as she pawed herself. “What’s the matter?”

She gestured to the redness. It looked as if her legs were blushing, and they were starting to sting in the cool air.

Asriel shifted back up the bed, laying his head at her knee. He dropped his lips to her skin and kissed from there to her groin, pausing to smother the offended skin with his tongue before continuing, as if his saliva were a healing balm. His tongue was almost at her entrance when he caught her eye, and noted the disdain splayed across her face.

“I’ve asked you not to do that,” she said.

“This?” he smirked, licking the full length of her vulva, his tongue stretching her clitoral hood upwards until her hips bucked. She slapped his head and Stelmaria growled from across the room.

“Don’t be obtuse. Today, it’s the rash, to say nothing of the indentations from your teeth. Last week was the bruise, the week before that, your nails down my back.”

“So?”

Marisa glared at him. “He saw the bruise, you know.”

Asriel had hoped as much. “I remember it. Hardly a smudge of an injury. I’m sure you explained it away without much trouble.”

“There are only so many times that I can hit my wrist against a doorway or tap my neck with my curling iron before he starts to get suspicious. To say nothing of _this_ ,” she gestured to the beard burn, “for which I can’t think of a single plausible explanation.”

Asriel propped himself up on his elbow. “I’ve left those marks before. You must’ve found an excuse then.”

“I can only rely on menstruation to save me once a month. And you cause me these problems more regularly than that.”

Asriel sighed. “Alright. Lie back down.”

She lowered herself back to the bed and spread her legs, reaching up to grab the headboard as he continued to lick her. “You must understand my predicament,” she said, her eyes drifting closed.

He made an unintelligible noise against her.

“It’s not – it’s not as if I _want_ to police you, but Edward – ”

Stelmaria growled again, and he glanced up at his lover, annoyed. “You’ve made your point, Marisa.”

She went quiet then, her next sound a soft groan as Asriel began to kiss up her bare body. He paused briefly at her navel, swilling his tongue around the neat depression, before settling at her breasts, flicking one nipple to a hard nub with his fingers while tugging on the other with his teeth.

When both nipples were suitably rigid, he moved his mouth to the plump skin of her breast, and the way his tongue laved over the area was welcome until she felt him suction his lips around the delicate skin and pull back, hard.

“Asriel!”

By the time she’d managed to shove him off her, a plum-coloured blemish had appeared on her otherwise alabaster skin. He didn’t even have the decency to look repentant. If anything, he looked pleased.

“You bastard,” she snapped, brushing her thumb across the blotch as if she could will it away with intention alone. The purple mark remained, taunting her.

Asriel was lounging on the bed like a prince, naked and glorious, and the sight infuriated her. She let out a huff and swung her legs off the bed, the monkey extricating himself from Stelmaria’s embrace and fetching her slip from the brocade chair that Asriel had stationed in the corner of his bedroom.

“Don’t,” Asriel said, the hint of a whine in his voice. Marisa ignored him, standing gracefully, though before she’d had time to dress, he’d moved to sit at the edge of the bed and pulled her to stand between his legs.

She looked down at him and ran a hand through his dark hair. It could do with a trim, she thought, as his forelock flopped against his forehead. His eyes were the piercing blue of a glacier, though his gaze was anything but icy. She clasped his head to her stomach before she had time to think about it, smiling as his hands wrapped around her back.

Asriel pressed a kiss to her stomach, stealing a glance at the blemished skin on the underside of her breast and suppressing a wolfish grin. “Come back to bed,” he said, his voice deep and rich. “I’ll be gentle.”

She scoffed. “When have you _ever_ – ”

“There’s always a first time.” He started to kiss her stomach again, his lips trailing up her body until he was standing before her. He kissed her passionately, her cheeks clasped in his palms, and slowly dragged her back onto the mattress, until she was perched on top of him, her curls tickling his chest.

Their hips ground against each other, his hands reaching down to clasp her backside and hold her to him. She was smiling now, her breasts pressed against his pectorals, one hand braced against the mattress so she could stretch out against him, coating him in her fluids. He gripped her hips more tightly, tilted his head back and groaned.

He wanted to be inside her, but she was enjoying herself too much for that, rubbing herself up and down his erection until he was panting. Without thinking, he craned his neck up and assaulted her décolletage, sinking his teeth into the smooth curve of her shoulder and letting his grunts be muffled by her skin.

She leapt back from him, resting her hands on his shoulders so he was pinned to the mattress. “Right,” she said, dismounting from his lap and stalking over to the wardrobe, her clothes draped over the open door.

For a moment, he thought she was dressing, and he pressed his fists into the bedspread like a child on the verge of a tantrum. But when he looked at her, a protest barrelling towards his tongue, he saw her rifling through _his_ clothes, the monkey on her shoulder.

“What are you doing?”

“You’ll see.”

The woman and the golden dæmon exchanged a few conspiratorial whispers, then Marisa pulled two of his silk ties from a hanger, one scarlet and the other navy, and turned to him, a sly grin on her face.

It took barely a second to glean her next move, and Asriel laughed.

“Move back on the bed,” she ordered him, and he obliged gladly, unfurling himself against the pillows and nestling into the mattress like a king about to be served. Marisa handed one silk strip to the monkey and kept the other, pinning his wrist to the bedpost and fastening it there with a single column tie. Her dæmon did the same with his other wrist, and Asriel’s glee was superseded only by his curiosity, mesmerised by the precise movements of the monkey’s deft black hands.

When both his wrists were attached to the bed, she stepped back and admired their handiwork, then sent the monkey back to Stelmaria with a flick of the head.

Asriel pulled on the restraints in a show of mock-concern, but then his brow furrowed and Stelmaria leapt to her feet when he realised the brutal efficacy of her ties. “Where did you learn to tie knots like this?”

Marisa grinned lasciviously, climbing back to his lap and straddling him, bare and beautiful. “Never you mind.”

“I feel I should,” he murmured, glancing up at his now-impotent hands and pulling on the ties so hard that the bedposts creaked with the strain. The knots remained tight. “Well, you’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“You’d not have me if I wasn’t.”

He grinned, though Stelmaria was poised beside them now, her eyes trained on Marisa. “That’s right.”

She leaned over and started to rub against him again, his erection already straining to be inside her, his hips juddering uselessly in an attempt to burrow into her warmth. She felt his hopeless flinching and smiled; Asriel felt a new flood of moisture coat him, and he groaned. His hands batted against the wooden bedposts, desperate to have her flesh clasped in his palms and to flip her underneath him and take her as he desired.

Instead, he had no choice but to submit to her torturously slow strokes, his arms flexing against his restraints, his chest heaving. Stelmaria let out a deep growl, and Marisa bent down and kissed him with a smug grin on her face.

Her tongue entwined with his for long enough that he almost forgot his frustration, but then he felt the smooth skin of her stomach against his and her erect nipples scraping against his chest, and he tried to grasp her to him, and failed with an infuriated moan.

Her cunt twitched as he flexed against the restraints. The bedframe creaked, like an intruder on a loose floorboard, and the sound filled her with delicious trepidation. He was panting now, and she slid off him to kneel between his legs and take him in her mouth, his thighs clenching as soon as her lips met his glans, sucking on his swollen tip like a lollipop. He tried haphazardly to fuck her face with his hips, but she used her elbows to force his legs down onto the mattress. Marisa knew that he could shrug off her arms if he wanted to, clasping her between his robust thighs, sculpted and powerful after years of mountain climbing, but there would be no relief for him then, and he knew that. All he could do was pull her towards him with his feet, his calves tightening with the effort.

Her tongue slathered over his frenulum, and she felt his thighs quiver beneath her arms. He was wheezing now, each flex of his arms making his biceps clench, the peaks and troughs of his muscles like rolling hills. “Marisa,” he grunted.

He wanted to spill himself into her throat, and was torturously close to doing so. She enveloped him several times more, his penis nestling into the back of her neck so that tears pricked at her eyes, and then she pulled away and leaned back on her arms, his body left to judder like a fish pulled from the ocean, gasping for air.

“Marisa,” he said again, his cheeks flushed, his dark eyes glaring at her.

“Yes, darling?” she trilled, smoothing her hands down his legs.

“Come here.”

“And what will you do if I won’t?”

He huffed and pulled against the ties, but had no recourse to do anything, which they both well knew. “As I suspected. You’ll do nothing at all.”

Stelmaria put her paws against the bed and bared her teeth. Marisa shivered, desire pulsing between her legs. Asriel pulled forward again and Marisa thought she saw a seam splitting, so she clambered back to his stomach, settling herself against the legs he astutely gripped together to make a support for her. She leaned back, letting her hair dangle down and tickle his shins, then spread her legs and began to pleasure herself. She was dripping before she even started, and soon moisture was pooling on his stomach, her eyes closed as she stroked herself, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

The sight was almost too erotic to stand, and Asriel did his best to create some friction for himself, his penis trapped between his leg and her backside, so hard it was beginning to ache. It was woefully inadequate, though, and to his horror, he whined, like a child denied a beloved toy. Mercifully, she was too focused on the task at hand to notice.

She was gasping now, her chest adorned with a delicate pink blush, and he was forcing out, “I want you,” before he could stop himself.

“I know,” she rasped, her hips jerking upwards.

They locked eyes, and Asriel briefly considered tearing off his hands at the wrists so that he could hurl himself at her. He thrashed side to side, and Marisa took some pity on him, leaning forward and slotting him into her body in one swift move.

It felt almost relief enough just to be inside her, but as she started to ride him, he was overcome by a different kind of frustration. She was teasing him, torturing him, slamming down hard enough to have him gasping and then slowing to a grind, her cruel mouth peppering kisses on his chest, his taut biceps, his sweat-crested forehead. 

He balled his hands into fists as he imagined her soft skin in his grasp, his fingertips dug into her so sharply that she bruised, their entanglement undeniable. The thought sent a jolt of pleasure through him, and suddenly it was too cruel to be restrained like this, kept apart from her, when he needed to take her in his arms, hold her to his chest, and merge the two of them together so aggressively that they were forced to live forever as one being. She was grinding on him now, her face buried in his neck, and it was too intense, too much, he was too close, and he didn’t want it to be over, because then she’d leave him here like this, his impotent arms an excruciating reminder of his inability to keep her with him, to hold her close and never let her go.

The desire to claim her overwhelming, he started to thrash against his bindings, and Marisa realised too late that the game was over. “My love,” she panted, stroking his face, but before she could placate him any further he’d ripped one tie in half and torn the other from the bedframe, taking the bedpost with it, a wild animal escaping from its cage with vengeance in its heart.

He hurled her underneath him with a roar, slamming into her so hard that he was surprised her pelvis didn’t shatter. He fucked her as violently as his body would allow, his teeth sunk into her throat like a lion going in for the kill. He bit her and kissed her and licked her, snarling, and she was crying out beneath him, her hands clasped around his shoulders, her hips meeting his thrust for thrust.

“Asriel,” she gasped. “Asriel.”

The sound of his name torn from her throat pushed him over the edge, and he came inside her with growl, looking down at her as she whimpered and thrashed, tendrils of saliva falling from his mouth and spattering her face. He placed a hand around her throat and squeezed, and then she came too, her cunt grasping him as tightly as his fingers were gripping her neck.

As her orgasm receded, he relinquished his hold on her throat, and she gasped. Then he pressed his ear to her mouth, groaning as her rapid breaths ruffled the delicate hairs of his tragus. He thought of the rash that must still be speckling her thighs, her swollen cunt, the red marks from his teeth that are dotting her neck, and he finally started to relax. He looked down at her, his frustration seeping away, and felt love blossom in his chest.

She was squirming beneath him now, and he pressed soft kisses to her cheeks, her neck, her trembling breast. “Asriel,” she said again, and he realised that her tone was not one of satisfaction, but discomfort.

He tried to lift his arm to brush her hair from her face and ask her what was wrong, but he answered his own question when he realised that the shard of bedpost was trapped beneath her back, keeping his hand at her waist with it, the silk tie still binding him to the jagged wooden pole. 

He tore the tie in two and scrambled back, allowing her to roll onto her front and display the damage. There was a vertical gash just above her kidney, the torn skin dotted with splinters, and Asriel winced.

“Stay here,” he said, swiping the remaining shard of wood to the floor with a clatter and stalking out of the room, a blanket held loosely around his waist.

The monkey leapt to the bed and settled on Marisa’s back, his dexterous fingers starting to pick slivers of wood from the wound. “Is it – is it bad?” she panted, and the monkey stilled. She groaned.

Before her dæmon could assess the damage further, Asriel returned to the room, a small leather case of medical equipment in his hand. “Sit up,” he instructed her, and she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and leaned forward, exposing the incision to him. He dropped the blanket and sat beside her, Stelmaria nuzzling the monkey on the bedspread, licking his fur with her rough tongue.

Asriel pressed a kiss to the torn skin before taking his tweezers to the wound, picking out splinters as if he was fixing the wiring in a prized piece of equipment. “Will it need a stitch?” she asked, and he could hear the trepidation in her voice.

“No,” he said, pausing briefly to stroke her back. “It might scar, though.”

She put her head in her hands and sighed.

He continued to remove the wooden fragments from the cut, and when he was satisfied with his work he daubed iodine over the area, wincing with her as she gasped and twisted away from him. He looked down at the gash, and felt something unpleasantly like guilt settle in his chest. He shrugged it off, and swallowed the apology he knew she would appreciate.

“Do you want to see, before I cover it?”

She sighed again. “I suppose I should,” she said.

They padded over to the standing mirror, and Marisa turned and looked over her shoulder, Asriel stepping forward and holding her gently to him. “Oh dear,” she said, her brows furrowing, though he felt her shiver pleasurably against him.

She turned back to face him and tilted her head, unimpressed. “And what shall I say about this, hmm?”

He nudged her back to the bed and pressed a few sloppy kisses to the inflamed skin, pausing to admire the wound before he hid it with the bandage. It would need to be cleaned regularly, he knew, and as he imagined Edward peeling the gauze from her back and applying antiseptic ointment as he had just done, he felt simultaneously filled to the brim with blazing anger and pleasantly aroused.

“That wasn’t a rhetorical question, you know.” Her glare was icy, but the monkey had his arms wrapped around Stelmaria’s neck and his face was buried in her fur, so Asriel knew he wasn’t really in trouble.

“I don’t know. You’ll think of something. You always do.”

She let out a breathy, incredulous laugh. “Yes, it’s always my problem, isn’t it?”

“You are the one with the ring on your finger.”

She bristled. “And you have no fear for me if he were to find out? You think I would walk away, unscathed, into your arms?” She laughed again, and he glared at her.

She continued, “Even if you aren’t concerned with _my_ wellbeing, the least you could do is worry about _yours_. I dread to think what would become of us – _both_ of us – if we are discovered. Then again, given the frequency with which you blemish me, I might think you quite liked the idea.”

He said nothing, which was all she needed to know. She sighed. “It would only be pain, Asriel. You must see that. If not for you, then certainly for me.”

He leaned forward and kissed her shoulder. “I don’t want you to be in pain,” he offered, though he couldn’t understand how her greatest pain wasn’t that they were routinely torn from one another, as it was his. He did not say this, however, because every time he made this intimation, it devolved into a spat.

“That’s hard to believe when you relish marking me in this way.”

“Oh, come now. I rarely break the skin.”

“Every mark is a risk, split skin or not. _This,_ ” she gestured to the gash, “is asking for recriminations.” He scrubbed his thumb over the bandage, and she flinched. “Asriel, what will I say to him? If I was _your_ wife, and I came home with these marks, what would you think?”

The question was an attack, and he resisted the urge to poke the wound under the guise of smoothing down the gauze again. “He should be grateful that you come home at all.”

Marisa sighed. “I still need an explanation.”

The room hung heavy with silence, for a beat. Then: “There’s always the truth.”

He looked so dejected that she leaned forwards and took his head in her hands, her fingers twirling in the curls at the base of his neck. “You must see how that would be the greatest injury of all.”

He didn’t, and they reached the same impasse they always came to nowadays, his agony at their repeated separation threatening to consume them both, an avalanche barrelling towards a town.

She kissed him. “I am yours in every way that matters, you know.”

He nodded, folding her to his breast, one hand stroking her hair as rain began to splash onto the pavement outside. But as he looked at the gold band on her left ring finger, the necklace inevitably purchased by her husband as a gift for celebrations he was not allowed to take part in, the clothes she insisted he did not rip so that she could dress and leave as if nothing had happened, as if no bond had been forged and brutally snapped for the thousandth time, he realised that he did not know that at all.


End file.
